ISSUE NINE : WINTER 2018

The cover image is of tending water and listening at Water Bar in Greensboro, North Carolina, courte- sy Shanai Matteson, Works Progress, and Water Bar & Public Studio.

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Open Rivers: Rethinking Water, Place & Community is produced by the University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing and the University of Minnesota Institute for Advanced Study.

Editors Editorial Board Editor: Jay Bell, Soil, Water, and Climate, University of Patrick Nunnally, Institute for Advanced Study, Minnesota University of Minnesota Tom Fisher, Metropolitan Design Center, Administrative Editor: University of Minnesota Phyllis Mauch Messenger, Institute for Advanced Study, University of Minnesota Lewis E. Gilbert, Institute on the Environment, University of Minnesota Assistant Editor: Laurie Moberg, Doctoral Candidate, Mark Gorman, Policy Analyst, Washington, D.C. Anthropology, University of Minnesota Jennifer Gunn, History of Medicine, University of Media and Production Manager: Minnesota Joanne Richardson, Institute for Advanced Study, University of Minnesota Katherine Hayes, Anthropology, University of Minnesota Contact Us Nenette Luarca-Shoaf, Art Institute of Chicago Open Rivers Institute for Advanced Study Charlotte Melin, German, Scandinavian, and University of Minnesota Dutch, University of Minnesota Northrop 84 Church Street SE David Pellow, Environmental Studies, University Minneapolis, MN 55455 of California, Santa Barbara

Telephone: (612) 626-5054 Laura Salveson, Mill City Museum, Minnesota Fax: (612) 625-8583 Historical Society E-mail: [email protected] Web Site: http://openrivers.umn.edu Mona Smith, Dakota transmedia artist; Allies: media/art, Healing Place Collaborative ISSN 2471-­190X

OPEN RIVERS : ISSUE NINE : WINTER 2018 2 ISSUE NINE : WINTER 2018 CONTENTS Introductions Introduction to Issue Nine By Patrick Nunnally, Editor ...... 4 Features Water Bar: Water is All We Have By Shanai Matteson ...... 6 Free-Flowing Waters: A Vision for a Lower Mississippi River Wilderness By John Ruskey and Boyce Upholt ...... 34 On The Uncompromising Hand: Remembering Spirit Island By Andrea Carlson ...... 63 Geographies Where the Water Flows: Understanding Glacier’s Triple Divide Peak By Quinn Feller ...... 75 Primary Sources The Story Behind a Nassau Bottle Excavated at Historic Fort Snelling By Nancy Buck Hoffman ...... 81 Perspectives In Quad Cities, Reconnection to the Riverfront Is Well Into Its Fourth Decade By Patrick Nunnally ...... 86 Teaching and Practice Mosquitos, Muck, and Mussels: A Look Into Scientific Research By Lea Davidson, James Doherty, Laura Gould, and Hayley Stutzman ...... 91 In Review Review of Underwater By Margaret Flood ...... 98

OPEN RIVERS : ISSUE NINE : WINTER 2018 3 ISSUE NINE : WINTER 2018 GEOGRAPHIES WHERE THE WATER FLOWS: UNDERSTANDING GLACIER’S TRIPLE DIVIDE PEAK By Quinn Feller magine pouring out a glass of water. Where I grew up, outside of Milwaukee, my water would Idoes the water go? join with Lake Michigan. In the Twin Cities, where I went to university, it would flow into After soaking your computer or floor, it would the Mississippi River. From Jackson, Wyoming, eventually flow to join a greater body of water and where I’m writing now, it would combine with become part of a larger drainage system. Where the Snake River and flow into the Pacific Ocean.

First snow at Triple Divide Peak. Image courtesy of Daniel Lombardi.

OPEN RIVERS : ISSUE NINE : WINTER 2018 / GEOGRAPHIES 75 ISSUE NINE : WINTER 2018 But Glacier National Park, where I worked in the think Hudson Bay connects to the Atlantic or summer of 2017, has a unique little point called Arctic Ocean, and there is certainly some dispute Triple Divide Peak. Triple Divide Peak marks surrounding that. There’s another triple divide the division of three major watersheds. If you peak in Canada that flows directly into the Arctic poured out your water on top of Triple Divide, it and Pacific Oceans, as well as into Hudson Bay. would flow into the Columbia River watershed, So, depending on what you think about Hudson and eventually the Pacific Ocean; it would flow Bay, either Canada or Montana has a triple into the Nelson River watershed, and eventually ocean divide. The International Hydrographic Hudson Bay and the Atlantic Ocean; and it would Organization considers it to be in the Arctic flow into the Mississippi River watershed, and division of oceans and seas, so that might be a eventually the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean. win for Montana. The significance of these triple divides as possibly flowing into three oceans Triple Divide is commonly hailed as unique and also depends on your definitions of oceans, significant because water from its peak flows which isn’t always straightforward. Regardless, into three oceans. That depends on whether you though, they all flow into three distinct and major

A view of Triple Divide peak as featured on an interpretive wayside panel. Triple Divide Peak is in the distant background between Kakitos Mountain on the left and Norris Mountain in the center. Image courtesy of Glacier National Park.

OPEN RIVERS : ISSUE NINE : WINTER 2018 / GEOGRAPHIES 76 ISSUE NINE : WINTER 2018 drainages. (As a side note, the naming schema the side of the road. They’re meant to be quick for water around triple divides tend to follow a interpretations of what you’re seeing, an opportu- similar structure; surrounding rivers, streams, nity for visitors to connect to the place they’re in and glaciers are often named for the drainage without necessarily interacting with a ranger.) I they join. Triple Divide Peak in Montana has the always thought I had a pretty good grasp of what Pacific, Atlantic, and Hudson Bay Creeks. Snow a watershed was and how drainages worked from Dome has the Columbia and Athabasca Glaciers, my time studying and living by the Mississippi, as well as the Dome and Stuttfield Glaciers.) but I learned so much throughout the course of making this wayside. As an exhibits specialist in Glacier, my job was to design interpretive wayside panels with our Unique in its geography and the sheer size of its seasonal media team. One of our selected topics combined drainage, Triple Divide Peak drains was Triple Divide Peak. (If you’ve ever been to into basins that cumulatively cover 1,823,000 a national park, or really any public land or well square miles. It connects incredibly different traversed road, you may have seen a wayside on portions of North America. To the east, the Great

Northeastern view from Triple Divide Pass in Glacier National Park showing Triple Divide Peak. Photographer Andy Curtis, 2004.

OPEN RIVERS : ISSUE NINE : WINTER 2018 / GEOGRAPHIES 77 ISSUE NINE : WINTER 2018 Plains lead into the agriculturally productive Triple Divide, in order to flow to three different interior of the United States, and eventually the oceans, must be a place where two continental Mississippi Delta. The Flathead River joins with divides meet, in this case the Great Divide and the Pend Oreille, then flows into the Columbia, the Laurentian Divide. Snow Dome in Canada is where human influence has inspired massive at a similar intersection, where the Great Divide dams and conservation, in turn. The northern and the Arctic Divide meet. There are other rivers, despite historic use by First Nations, are triple divides that aren’t at the intersections of now known for the presence of fur traders and continental divides, though. In Wyoming, Three hydroelectric development in more recent years Waters Mountain marks the triple point where (a common motif along rivers and land in North the Colorado, Columbia, and Mississippi water- America). sheds meet. California has its own Triple Divide Peak in Tulare County, where the Kern River, the Triple Divide Peak brings together three major Kaweah River, and the Kings River watersheds drainages in northwestern Montana, almost in meet. Europe has triple divides in Switzerland Canada. I knew this, I had told people this, and I (Witenwasserenstock and Lunghin Pass, if you’re thought it was a pretty neat concept. And I knew curious). Asia, interestingly, has no major triple that continental divides acted as drainage divides. divides because of the massive endorheic basin in But I hadn’t reasoned through the idea that its interior. Endorheic is one of my new favorite

View of Triple Divide Peak in the distance, showing the upper end of St. Mary Lake and Wild Goose Island, Glacier National Park, Montana. Photo taken from Going-to-the-Sun Road. Photographer Ken Thomas, 2006.

OPEN RIVERS : ISSUE NINE : WINTER 2018 / GEOGRAPHIES 78 ISSUE NINE : WINTER 2018 words. When water collects without an outlet to a of connection and collection across the world, river or ocean, it forms an endorheic basin. Much we have to consider the greater impact of our of the Sahara Desert is part of one endorheic actions. basin, draining into Lake Chad. Antarctica is the only other continent with a multi-ocean triple Melting snow and ice provide a critical source of divide, and that again depends on how you define water, sustaining habitats for countless plants oceans. and animals, here and downstream. Protecting these pristine waters also supports agriculture, As singular as Triple Divide is, we wanted to recreation, and industry across the continent. emphasize connection over division in our As the climate warms and glaciers recede, the wayside sign. The same drops that enter the store of water that nourishes the continent will water in Glacier will make their way to three diminish. Though Triple Divide Peak seems far oceans. They might flow past your house, or they away, what happens here has effects that reach might grow the food you eat. With so many points close to home.”

“Triple Divide Peak, the distant mountain peeking out across the lake, is one of the few places in the world where streams feeding three major watersheds originate. Glacier National Park’s waters flow across the continent to very different places: the Pacific Ocean, Hudson Bay, and the Gulf of Mexico.” Image of the sign courtesy of Glacier National Park.

OPEN RIVERS : ISSUE NINE : WINTER 2018 / GEOGRAPHIES 79 ISSUE NINE : WINTER 2018 Recommended Citation Feller, Quinn. 2018. “Where the Water Flows: Understanding Glacier’s Triple Divide Peak.” Open Rivers: Rethinking Water, Place & Community, no. 9. http://editions.lib.umn.edu/openrivers/ article/where-the-water-flows-understanding-glaciers-triple-divide-peak/. About the Author Quinn Feller is most likely to be found in Wyoming or Montana, though she hails from Wisconsin. Growing up near Lake Michigan and going to school along the Mississippi River (in the Twin Cities) helped inspire her interest in water systems. She currently designs educational publications for the National Park Service and affiliated organizations, and works and resides in Jackson, WY.

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